FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Houston Marathon Committee Announces New Courses
HOUSTON - The Houston Marathon Committee, in conjunction with the City of
Houston, announced on Tuesday the new courses for the Chevron Houston
Marathon and Aramco Houston Half Marathon. Lottery registration for the
Chevron Houston Marathon and Aramco Houston Half Marathon will be open
until June 20, with the selected runners announced on June 24. The 2014
races will start at 7:00 a.m. on Sunday, January 19.
"Houston is a wonderful sports town and the marathon has been a large part
of that for over 40 years," said Mayor Annise Parker. "There is no
single-day sporting event with the history that the Chevron Houston
Marathon has in Houston. The new courses will showcase our great city and
all it has to offer to the 250,000 volunteers, spectators and runners from
all 50 states and 30 countries."
The new marathon and half marathon courses will provide a better
participant experience for the runner by giving them more space and wider
roads to run on. The first eight miles, now populated with local businesses
and easier to access through major thoroughfares, will improve the
spectator experience as well.
Following are a few of the changes to the courses:
The races, which previously had separate start lines, will now have one
combined start line on Congress Avenue.
Instead of leaving downtown via the Elysian Viaduct, runners will leave
along the Washington Corridor.
The first eight miles of both races will be run together and pass through
neighborhoods including River Oaks and Upper Kirby before splitting near
Rice University.
The Aramco Houston Half Marathon will then head back north through Montrose
and along the Buffalo Bayou before finishing downtown.
The Chevron Houston Marathon will continue on to Rice Boulevard and West
University before heading back to the previous course at Post Oak
Boulevard. Memorial is then utilized instead of Woodway to add distance and
visual appeal to the course. From there, the prior course is maintained
through to the finish line downtown.
"Our team is excited about the many benefits that these course changes
bring to the table," said Chevron Houston Marathon Race Director Brant
Kotch. "We think that our runners will love the wider streets, which will
also allow us to consider increasing participation caps, and we hope that a
greater emphasis on running through commercial districts will deliver new
partners to our event to help us improve our already excellent reputation
for crowd support. Last but not least, for the performance-minded, we are
confident that the new courses will be even faster than before. Our event
records will definitely be in jeopardy."
The 2014 Race Weekend will also play host to the U.S. Half Marathon
Championships, to be run in conjunction with the Aramco Houston Half
Marathon, as well as the ABB 5K which will be run on Saturday, January 18.
The new course map for the Chevron Houston Marathon and the Aramco Houston
Half Marathon can be found here http://www.chevronhoustonmarathon.com/Uplo
ad/documents/2014%20Course%20Maps.pdf.
For more information on the Chevron Houston Marathon Race Weekend,
visit www.chevronhoustonmarathon.com.
About the Houston Marathon Committee, Inc.
Established in 1972, the Houston Marathon Committee, Inc. (HMC), a Running
USA Founding Member, annually organizes the nation's premier winter
marathon, half-marathon, and 5K. Over 250,000 participants, volunteers and
spectators make Chevron Houston Marathon Race Day the largest single-day
sporting event in Houston. Race Weekend generates over $50 million in
economic impact for the region annually. In 2013, the Run For a Reason
Charity Program raised $2.2 million and the HMC garnered Gold Certification
from the Council of Responsible Sport for industry-leading sustainability
initiatives. Host to 12 U.S. Half Marathon Championships since 2005 and
the 1992 women's Olympic Trials Marathon, HMC conducted the
nationally-televised 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon, which featured men
and women competing on the same course simultaneously for the first time,
vying for the chance to represent Team USA at the 2012 Olympic Games.
For more information, visit www.chevronhoustonmarathon.com or call
713-957-3453.
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